[PotatoEngineer]

"Sponsored" implies an advertising relationship, even if it avoids the dread word - sponsors pay you. "Inspired by your browsing history" is accurate, and is Amazon advertising Amazon - you're on a shopping site, seeing more links to shopping shouldn't surprise you. "Promoted Discovery" is a new and unrecognized flavor of newspeak; it's not just avoiding the word "advertising," it's hard to even recognize as advertising.

[creamyhorror]

I agree that the term "promoted discovery" isn't established and hides the true nature of the feature. I can the logic for choosing it, thought it's not very solid:

- "promotional material" = advertising material (that promotes a product)

- "discovery" = discovery through recommendations from the page owner

- hence, "promot-" + "discovery" communicates "advertising through recommendations"

However, "promoted" isn't quite the same thing as "promotional". What's actually happening is that promotional material is being presented as "recommendations from the page owner". The "discovery" itself isn't "promoted" (what does that even mean?). Most importantly, "promoted" doesn't contain the implication of advertising/sponsoring that "promotional" does.

It would have been more accurate to call this Sponsored Discovery or, to be even more real, Sponsored Recommendations. "Sponsored", however, is a bit of a dirty word too, and they probably made the call to euphemize around it, resulting in the confusing term Promoted Discovery.